Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World

  • Alex (Sandy) Pentland | Co-Director, MIT Media Lab, Digital Life Consortium and Founder, MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

A surprising amount of human behavior can be reliably predicted from unconscious communication mechanisms. These unconscious social signals are not just a back channel or a complement to our conscious language; they form a separate communication network. Biologically based “honest signaling” is an ancient channel of communication, and if we understand it, we can accurately predict the outcomes of situations ranging from job interviews to first dates to sealing a deal. To this end we have developed a digital sensor, worn like an id badge-a “sociometer”-to monitor and analyze the back and forth patterns of signaling among groups of people. Using this “network intelligence” theory of social signaling we can harness the intelligence of our social network to become better managers, workers and communicators.

Speaker Details

Sandy Pentland is a pioneer in the fields of organizational engineering, mobile information systems and computational social science. He co-directs the Digital Life Consortium at MIT, a group of more than 20 multinational corporations exploring new ways to innovate, and oversees the Next Billion Network, established to support aspiring entrepreneurs in emerging markets. In 1997 Newsweek named Pentland one of the 100 Americans likely to shape this century.

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